Monday, July 24, 2006

(Graham, who created the original TJ image we all know and love, was kind enough to whip up this birthday version for me. Graham is the Takeru Kobayashi of Photoshop.)Yup...today marks one year of Trapper Juan. Here's my very first post. I've made an effort to stop rambling so much. It's strange to note how much stuff has changed:- A year ago, I had just started writing for Okayplayer. Here's my first review; again, I've learned to (somewhat) curtail the ramble. Since that time, the editor who brought me on quit, and I somehow managed to summon the ire of Pumpkinhead fans across the land.All four of them. (Just for the record, I still think Pumpkinhead's album sucks.) It was through here that I ended up writing a little bit for Rockpile. I still do stuff for OKP here and there. Ginny, that review I owe you is seriously coming, I swear.- A year ago, I was still deciding whether or not I should apply for an internship with City Paper. In fact, this blog played a small role in me landing said internship. Here's my first CP article. I somehow managed to parlay my experience into a pretty regular freelance hustle, including some work with the excellent DIW and a weekly gig as a restaurant columnist. Who knew? I certainly didn't. My food knowledge has increased...slightly. For example, thanks to David Ansill, I now know what osso bucco is. Grazie, Dave.- If you Googled my name a year ago (don't front like you ain't Googled yourself), you'd find stuff like the 2002 results from the Chattanooga Area Swim League (apparently, Itallied a paltry 10 points for the woeful 0-4 Hamilton Club) and the Myspace of a band called Meriwether that features separate members named "Drew" and "Lazor." Now, my crap writing appears sporadically on sites ranging from Sonny Boy's to Harrah's to Wang Newton's. Weird.Okay, so maybe stuff hasn't changed all that much. Still, I feel pretty good about my accomplishments, however modest they may be. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank the people who have helped me grow over the past year, professionally or otherwise. Y'all are truly great. And, of course, thank you to the people who read this poor excuse for a blog, even though I know most of you accidentally come here while searching for pictures of Juelz Santana or Constance Marie topless or whatever. Here's to a year of terrible captions, cluttered thoughts, stolen bandwidth, unintelligible backpack-rap releases, poorly structured opinion pieces, kitty pictures, forced movie references and categorically presumptuous hotlinking. And, last but not least...gratuitous YouTube content embeddage. Thanks again--seriously. Cheers.

Friday, July 21, 2006

This fella, one Louis Reard, invented the bikini 60 years ago this month. "A bikini is not a bikini unless it can be pulled through a wedding ring," he once quipped. Dear Louis, you are the dude. We salute you. And your Morty Seinfeld glasses.Can someone please buy me the The Unofficial MacGyver How-To Handbook? It's a revised second edition, too.I'm sure some of you have dreamed of becoming "YouTube famous," and let me assure you that there's nothing wrong with thinking big. It's just that some people I know are doing it bigger than others. Take, for example, my buddy Murtaugh (no relation to Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon), whose alcohol-induced, expletive-ridden tirade against some dumb WVU blonde makes for uber-pleasing viewage. Then, there's Oh My Todd, whose wealth of MySpace friends and kiddie-shirt-rocking prowess is matched only by his ability to appear in an oft-aired Comcast commercial. I saw that shit about a million times before realizing it was him. You can also catch a shot of Todd's head in Lady In The Water, which everyone hated but I really liked.Philly's Icon The Mic King recently got himself into a pretty bad bike accident, which he chronicled here, complete with harrowing pictures. Sorry about that, man: get well soon. Nick, my favorite contestant from last year's Project Runway (shut up, you know you watch it) is doing episode recaps for People online. "Meanwhile, Vincent "My Model Has a Hat that Looks Like a UFO Made out of a Basket" got stuck with Angela "I Am an Organic Farmer Who Breeds Gowns Instead of Cows." From the beginning, they were repelling like Diana Eng's magnets (remember her from last season?)!" Ah, classic Nick. I love that guy. I wanted to point out the upcoming Skip Williamson retrospective at Trinity Art Gallery beginning August 4. Skip is the dude.Doesn't this sound like the coolest multiplayer video game ever? Not that I'd play it. That shit's for the birds.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

If you know me, you know that I'm obsessed with MacGyver. Seriously obsessed. I watched the show religiously as a kid, much to the chagrin of my dad, who argued that it was unrealistic that a man with such a mastery of empirical processes also possessed a gorgeous mane. I generally agreed with him, but stayed quiet about it due to the fact that I secretly wished MacGyver was my father.

I have the first three seasons on DVD, and I'm upset by the fact that I don't yet own four through six, because that's when Murdoc starts showing up. Also, I had a shitty Muzak version of the MacGyver theme song as my ringtone for about a year. Since that phone was accidentally put through a wash cycle broke, I've been unable to locate this tone, and it breaks my little biracial heart.

Ah yes: I recently had a bonafide MacGyver moment of my own. And it fucking ruled. At 4am, after returning home from dropping off a friend, I realized Michelle had locked the chain on the door from the inside, making my entry impossible. Or so I thought. After several failed attempts at pushing the chain off its track with my keys, a rolled-up flier and a marker (don't ask me why I had a marker), the gears in my head started turning...slowly. "WWRDAD?" I wondered. Out loud. Fuck it all, it was 4am.

Suddenly, it hit me, like a dinner cart propelled by the force of several devalved liquid nitrogen tanks. I removed one of my shoelaces, reached behind the door, and tied a knot through one of the chain's links. Then, I looped the shoelace on top of the door, shut it almost completely, and yanked it lengthwise. The chain came undone, and I rushed into my apartment like a champ. I attempted to wake up Michelle to inform her of my exploits, but she didn't seem that impressed. I later learned that she had locked the chain because she was pissed at me.

All of these things considered, it's straight-up blasphemous that I never thought to search YouTube for MacGyver-related clips. Until now. Embedded below are just a few of the treasure-in-National Treasure-caliber things I discovered. I'm saving the rest for a rainy day that will most likely take place tomorrow next week. Brace for the smooth taste.

This clip is one of the main reasons why I would totally vote Mac in 2008. He cares about us, so much so that he wants to us to be ready for diarrhea.

Here's just one of a series of advertisements RDA did for some Taiwanese sports drink. It's entirely obvious that he does not know tai chi, but I doubt that the Taiwanese gave a rip--it's all about the white sweatpants/white socks/white sneakers combination, y'all.

When the Atkins craze landed, "Dual Carbs" went the way of the leopard print scrunchie/brontosaurus, and the nervous breakdown-inducing "Bits 'n' Pizzas" was ushered in. Their pizza, of course, continued to suck. Today's post possesses a tad of BnP espirit, however, as this portion consists of a random samplage of weird shit friends have sent me recently. Thanks to everyone.

- Johns Hopkins 'shrooms study is a resounding success. Two-thirds of participants ranked the experience "one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives"..."I think it's time to pick up this research field," says some labcoat. Totally, bro. I'm on The Wall duty. (courtesy of Gerard)

- A Texas school district bans grillz (yes, they spell it like that), infringing upon a student's divine right to cause a cold front when he/she takes a deep breath. What's more shocking--the fact that 69 percent of poll voters cast a "thumbs down" to grillz, or this? Is that you, Hilary Duff? (courtesy of Caitlyn)

Michelle does more crossword puzzles than Mike Mussina, so the Inky comics section is always quick-glance accessible. Every day, I ask her if Family Circus is funny. And every day, she answers the same way: no. Of course it's not fucking funny. It's the worst one-panel in the history of the artform, so much so that I often dream up sordid captions to replace Bil Keane's crap dialogue, which he still totally concocts on a Truman-era typewriter in his musty den. Long story short, I'm glad someone else feels the same way.Ever since I mentioned it in a comment the other day, I've grown quite nostalgic over Hugo's House of Horrors, a game I purchased on 3.5" disk for like, five bucks at my childhood video rental store in shitty bucolic Harford County, Maryland. I freaked when I discovered that I could download not just the first, but all three Hugo titles at the DOS Games Archive, for free. I love the Internet. I highly recommend that everyone get the game and play it. It's brilliant.